News Release

Ashton Carter: * Insider * Spawned Nuclear Buildup

MELVIN GOODMAN, goody789 at verizon.net
In his recent piece “The Dumbing Down of National Security Policy” following the resignation of Chuck Hagel, Goodman wrote: “The inability of three secretaries of defense [under President Obama] to ride herd on senior general officers at an important juncture in national security policy points to the need for a seasoned expert who can reexamine use of force issues, gain control over weapons acquisition policy, and take a hard look at defense spending. The mainstream media is already speculating that former deputy defense chiefs, such as Ashton Carter or Michele Flournoy, are leading candidates to replace Hagel but neither one is strong enough for such a difficult assignment.”

Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career includes tours with the U.S. Army, the CIA, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense. His most recent books are The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.

USA Today notes that Carter “worked in the Clinton administration, helping develop the U.S. nuclear weapons policy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

ALICE SLATER, aslater at rcn.com
Slater will be leaving the U.S. for Vienna for a week beginning Thursday for a conference organized by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. She is with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Abolition 2000 coordinating committee. Slater said today: “Carter has been through the revolving door between industry, the military and academia — advising Goldman Sachs and other investment firms on military technology along the way.

“He was present at the desecration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by Bill Clinton with a $6 billion promise to the Dr. Strangeloves in the U.S. weapons labs that they could do computer simulated laboratory tests of nuclear weapons, coupled with sub-critical tests a thousand feet below the desert floor at the Nevada test site, where plutonium is blown up with explosives, but because there is no chain reaction, the Clinton administration contended it was not a test, kind of like not inhaling or not having sex with that woman.

“It was because the U.S. refused to preclude advanced technical testing that India announced it would do a whole new series of nuclear tests, developing its own nuclear arsenal, swiftly followed by Pakistan. This $6 billion program grew like a cancer upon the nation and is now projected to cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years with projections for new bomb factories, new warheads, and delivery systems.

“Carter was also instrumental in establishing the policy that led to the new demonization of Russia which we see today. He advised Clinton on missile technology and how the U.S. could begin to deploy a missile shield in Alaska while claiming it was not violating the 1972 anti-ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, although Russia was not convinced. Bush actually walked out of the ABM treaty, which Clinton had already violated, and the missile race was on. Carter also advised Obama on expanding the U.S. empire to Asia in the so-called Asia pivot, which resulted in new bases in the Pacific, expanded missile shields with Japan and South Korea, and actually stationing troops in Australia.”